N.Y. suspect linked to high contact in al-Qaeda

Connection called very ‘alarming’

NEW YORK — The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with al-Qaeda that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant believed to be the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as Zazi hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city's mass transit system, two intelligence officials said.

Intelligence officials declined to discuss the nature of the contact or whether al-Yazid contacted Zazi to offer simple encouragement or help with the bombing plot prosecutors say Zazi was pursuing.

Al-Yazid's contact with Zazi indicates that al-Qaeda leadership took an intense interest in what U.S. officials have called one of the most serious terrorism threats crafted on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Zazi working with the al-Qaeda core is exceptionally alarming,” said Daniel Bynam of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center. “The al-Qaeda core is capable of far more effective terrorist attacks than jihadist terrorists acting on their own, and coordination with the core also enables bin Laden to choose the timing to maximize the benefit to his organization.”

U.S. intelligence officials said earlier that Zazi had contact with an unnamed senior al-Qaeda operative. That helped distinguish Zazi, 24, from other would-be terrorists who have acted on their own in planning or attempting U.S. attacks.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the case remains under investigation, declined to describe al-Yazid's specific interaction with Zazi, who has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. One senior U.S. intelligence official said the contact between Zazi and the senior al-Qaeda leader occurred through an intermediary.

Weeks before U.S. intelligence officials identified Zazi as a possible terrorist threat in late August, John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top domestic terrorism adviser, told a Washington audience that “another attack on the U.S. homeland remains the top priority for the al-Qaeda senior leadership.”

U.S. intelligence officials and prosecutors have said that Zazi was recruited and trained by al-Qaeda. They say he and others traveled last year to Pakistan to receive the training.